Fake social security scam site targeting Cape Coral exposed

A fake social security website that, authorities believe, attempts to steal your personal information has been operating under the radar of the federal government until now.

Criminals are targeting people nationwide and specifically in Cape Coral.

The Inspector General’s Office wants to find the person who stole the Social Security Administration's logo and used it to create the fake site.

“Social Security generates tons of traffic every day,” said Alex Galante, who tipped us off about the site. “I thought this is weird. Why would social security advertise that?"

The page claims to have a government office in Cape Coral.

“Since I work with social security every day, I realized there is no social security office in Cape Coral and so that immediately raised a red flag to me,” she said.

The only social security office in Lee County is in Fort Myers off of Colonial Boulevard.

We discovered the phone number on the site was phony too. We called it numerous times and got an antiquated busy signal.

We discovered the people who own the website also own a nationwide home repair service and marketing site.

“It is most definitely a misleading site that is being run to generate leads for their own business,”

“As soon as we discovered the site was suspicious, we notified Cape Coral Police Department and the Lee County Fraud Investigators. We also got the social security office involved,” said Andrew Cannarasa of the Social Security Administration.

“This is a priority of the Inspector General’s office. These types of schemes can target vulnerable segments of the population. We can also take action to either have the communication shut down or potentially find the people who are operating these communications,” Cannarasa concluded.

The Social Security Administration reminds people their URL ends in ".gov" whereas the fake site was a ".org" address.